We'll Be Home Soon
by DxLilith
Summary: AU. Seto's lost his brother and his only clue is a matchbook with a club insignia. mentions of JxS.
1. The Cave

**Disclaimer**: Don't own YGO, i'm just borrowing the names but this storyline IS mine.

**AN: **the storyline is actually an adv. creative writing assignment from a previous semester. i enjoyed it so much i decided to share it.

* * *

The smell of sweat filled the club along with lingering scents of scotch, whiskey, brandy, and ale; beer, tequila, vodka and rum. The lights flashed. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. The music so loud that even the DJ couldn't remember the words to the song, just that the rhythm pulsed throughout the floor and into people's feet and up their spines in a tantrum sensation allowing fluid movements of arms and legs, limbs and fingers, reaching out to touch one another.

The clientele of The Cave were mostly strung out teens and twenty-year-olds all too young and drugged out to deal with Domino in the morning. So they came here, washing themselves in sin and tonic.

Seto was not one of them. He was a twenty-three years old paralegal, sober, wearing clothes that fit and didn't glow in the dark, and he was looking for his brother.

His only lead was a matchbook with the club's insignia on it, a dark swirl of purple against a round of black, found outside his brother's door with no other plan than to go and search. Seto realized just how stupid it was when he was already inside, pushing against and away bodies, searching for a glimpse at raven hair and gray eyes. Crunching numbers and going over case files suddenly became a lot more interesting.

" Hey baby, ain't cha on da wrong side of town?" A thick Brooklyn accent filled his right ear when arms wrapped around his shoulders. Seto was quick to jerk back, throwing off who ever the voice belonged to.

" Go find someone else to molest."

" An' if I only want yous?"

" Then you're going to have to..." The sentence was left unfinished when Seto turned around and recognized a face he thought he'd never see again. The blond hair with black streaks, the skintight shirt ripped at the hems, and the jeans so torn he wondered how they were still on, all alluded to a complete stranger but Seto knew only one person with mismatch colored eyes. The right eye green, left eye brown, it had to be..." Joseph!"

" Baby, I don't go by dat anymore. Jus Jo." The man once known as Joseph smiled, flashing his pearly white fangs. Seto's mind went reeling, of all the people he'd thought to find, Joseph Wheeler was the last.

"What're you doing here?"

Seto went back six years to a night there were no stars because the city's pollution choked the sky. It'd been two weeks after their high school graduation and Seto and Joseph were sitting on the truck bed of a ford pickup, compliments of the latter's alcoholic father.

"Baby, you're in my playground now, I get ta push da swings."

Jo closed any and all distance between them as he reached out to touch Seto, slithering his hand up and around the back of the other's neck, caressing the smaller hairs. " What're you doin' here? If you kept on the straight n' narrow, ya shouldn't end up here."

" That's more than I can say for you." Seto spat. He felt incredibly uncomfortable and not because Jo was so close he could see the boy's beads of sweat drip from his forehead but because the contact was welcomed. In any other circumstance, with any number of other people, he would have shoved them away and continued on but he was trapped. Trapped by the two-colored eyes and the boy he hadn't thought was still alive. " You mad?" Jo smiled, taking his other hand and sliding it opposite the other in Seto's hair. " You don't know the half of it Baby." He leaned in a little closer, their lips almost touching and looked Seto straight in the eye. " What're you doin' here?"

For two seconds Seto forgot himself. Forgot who he was, where he was, why he was there at all. All he could think about was the fact that Jo's breath smelled like vanilla caramels and Jaeger. "Mokuba."

" I knew it." And just like that, Jo let go of Seto, taking a few steps back and bumping into a couple dancing so close together you could smell the sex radiating off of them.

" You've seen him?" Seto's heart leaped into his throat if at least metaphorically because it could have easily been the music.

Jo held out his hand. " I saw a pretty boy tonight an' thought about you. Hair jet-black like yours an' da same pair of sad eyes." He was shouting, too far away in the packed club to be heard over the noise. " He was on the wrong kind of high, you sure you wanna see 'im?"

" He's my brother!" Seto screamed, the music became faster, heavier, and the bodies were beginning to thrash about. He sought Jo's hand afraid he'd be eaten up by the masses. He felt thin fingers slip into his and tug.

Six years ago, he'd have followed Joseph anywhere, anytime with a bubble of anticipation of what trouble they would get into next. That was six years ago when they were still best friends. They lived in each other's world even when one was pissed off at the other or when they ended up with broken legs because the idea of jumping off bridges was a good one. Even when one was in love with the other and it was the best-kept secret since the brain tumor his father had been silently suffering from. Now he was following Jo into the depths of The Cave, surrounded by people so far gone from this realm they would be offended if referred to as humans. The music grew louder before it faded and lights stopped flashing to pulsate. There were less and less bodies and more and more hiding places. Seto could hear the noises of people having sex, laughing, arguing, fighting, screaming, murmuring, snorting lines of coke.

" Why are you here?" Seto's head was too fill with questions not to at least ask one.

" Long story Baby, long story."

" Stop calling me baby." Seto squeezed his hand over Jo's, " Give me the cliff notes?"

" You're here for Mokuba, not me." Jo continued to tug Seto further and further down a hallway, his feet knowing all too well where they were going to end up.

" You're coming with us."

" You jus decided dat for me?"

" Yes."

" You were always da dumb one Seto."

" I've changed." Seto stopped, pulling Jo back from getting caught up by storm of bodies grinding themselves raw. He held him to his chest until he felt Jo pushing away.

" No you haven't." Jo whispered, not to be heard by Seto at all. He was still holding his hand, still tugging him along. Jo used his free hand to reach out to the wall, feeling around for a door that was easily missed in the strobe lighting and curtains. When he felt hinges he spoke loud enough for Seto to hear. " Dis is it," and let go of his hand, opting to be the first one to open the door. Seto looked over Jo's shoulder but only caught a silver of a room before Jo closed the door back up. " He's not in there?" Panic boiled over somewhere inside the pit of his stomach where all the knots were sitting. Seto was scared shitless. Afraid he'd been too late. Two weeks late since Mokuba had first gone missing.

" Ever changed ya brotha's diaper?"

" What?"

" Sometimes seein' too much of someone is bad, no matter how much ya've known 'em."

" Joey, you're not making..."

" Ya don't need ta see certain people doin' certain things"

" What is he doing?" but Seto was already reaching for the doorknob. Jo pressed himself up against the taller man to stop him.

" Do you rememba da night I left?"

" What! Jo is he in there or not!"

" Do you rememba?"

" Of course, what does that have to do..." Seto trailed off when he realized Jo's hands were encircling his waist.

" Tell me."

He tried to remember the night in the pickup. The night no stars were out. They'd been driving for hours and ended up on some dusty hillside just outside the city. It had reached the darkest of night and even though they lay right next to one another, they could only just make out the other's outlines.

" We were high. Parked in the middle of fucking nowhere. I...I kissed you and.." Seto watched Jo's expression hoping to find some meaning to all this. He remembered being shoved. He remembered feeling utterly rejected. " You tasted like booze and I wanted to puke right then and there but you were still crying."

" An' why was I cryin'?"

" Because..."

" Because?"

" Because you were hurt, that fucking prick of your father hurt you." Seto's hands curled around Jo's shoulders only to push him aside. He threw the door open, eyes searching like a madman for sanity for his brother.

The room was set up much like any other back office. Shelves of binders, books and drug paraphernalia lined two quarters of the walls. There were two leather bound chairs facing a wide desk but it was who was on the desk that turned Seto's skin cold.

Mokuba is eighteen but fiercely resembles a twenty-odd year girl. Alabaster skin, long black hair, and small curves always confused people but never really bothered him. In fact, he'd purposely wear womens' clothing to get into clubs and have his drinks paid for. His androgyny was also a tool to maintain his meth addiction. Tonight was no different.

" Mokuba!"

He felt arms before he understood that they belonged to his brother who was now pulling his dress back down. " You're fucking sick!" but Seto wasn't yelling at him but at that guy. That guy that Mokuba couldn't remember his name, just that he had a syringe full of euphoria.

" _Seto, let me go. I'm okay. I'm okay. I got this. I want this. Just one shot. I'll be good. I'll come home. Just one more shot_." In Mokuba's head's he sounded perfectly normal, words spoken to ease the tension in the room but to Seto, it sounded like nothing more than the rabid pleading of a junkie.

" Hey, look, he came to me okay?" The man with a name neither brother cared enough about hadn't bother to put his pants back on, just sat there in his underwear.

" I don't want to hear it!" Seto nearly screamed, the blood rushing straight to his head. Before he did something along the lines of breaking his fist against the man's face, he grabbed a hold of Mokuba's arm and stormed out with his brother still pleading and mumbling and squirming.

Jo watched from his corner outside the room, surprised nothing else happened. When he was younger, he had known Seto to be secretly violent; the kind that would beat the shit out of his father if he saw Joseph come to school with a black eye or two. It was something that both excited and frightened him and wondered sometimes what it would be like to be hit by an enraged Seto.

" We're going." Seto's hand snatched Jo's wrist dragging him alongside.

"_nononononononononono, Seto, no please, please, one more shot, ONE MORE SHOT! I need it, I neeeed it. Please! pleasepleasepleaseee. I'll give you anything...ANYTHING_!" The panic was rising and Mokuba's movements were becoming ever more wild, making it harder for Seto to keep a hold of him.

" Mokuba!" Seto didn't like it but he let go of Jo and held onto Mokuba with both arms, pushing him along in front of him so that the smaller boy was forced to go the same way as him. He wanted nothing more than to be home. He could deal with anything there and not The Cave. He turned his head to make sure Jo was still following when Mokuba began shrieking.

" _LET ME GO. I WANT IT! LET ME GO SETO! PLEASE I NEED IT!_ "

" You need ta take 'im to a hospital an' have 'im..."

" _I HATE YOU LET ME HAVE IT I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T!"_

" Dis way's faster." Jo stuck his index and pointer fingers into a belt loop on Seto's pants and broke through a throng of people to continue into a darker part of the club. Somewhere where the lights and music couldn't reach. Less and less people were around until finally they found themselves in an empty stairwell, leading down into a glowing red exit sign. There stood a giant black door between freedom and sin.

" Be there for 'im but don't listen. Shut ya ears, it's all da meth. Watch him. Don't give 'em nothin' sharp. Stay by his side an' when he's low..."

" You're coming with me." Seto cut Jo off, already going down the steps, not really listening to the blonde.

" I ain't so ya betta get goin'."

" _PLEASE SETO! Anything, anything you want me to do, I'll stop wearing makeup, I'll stop stealing your money, I'll I'll_..."

" Mokuba, NO." Seto shook his bother a little, watching tears run down the boy's face, ruining all his makeup, revealing tiny lesions. In the back of Seto's throat he threw up the one cup of coffee he had had all day.

" Jus go Seto, he'll need your attention 24/7."

" Come with us." It was Seto's turn to plead. He felt he was drowning in Mokuba's screams. He wanted more than ever to have Joseph in his life. Now that he knew he was still alive. That the one other person in his life that meant something could stick around and help him get through this was all Seto needed, just as much as Mokuba thought he needed the meth.

" Don't be stupid Seto. Ya got wat ya came for, now go help 'im 'fo somethin' happens. Meth-heads are sneaky fuckers."

" _Seto! Seto! You can have Jo, just let me go! You can have him all to yourself! i know his pimp. his pimp, his pimp, his pimp knows a guy who has the best stuff. Come on, whaddya._.."

" JUS GO!" Jo shouted, tears leaping out of his eyes. " FUCKIN' GO! DER AIN'T NOTHIN' YOUS CAN DO FOR ME!"

Silence. Even Mokuba stopped his babbling, if only for a moment before mumbling things underneath his breath. Seto looked up at Jo from his spot three steps down and stared. Stared and stared. In his head were a million excuses and pleas and arguments and commands he could shout at Jo but he couldn't choose any and his mind went further. Further into a time he and Joseph could still call each other friends.

_" You're such a girl, always holdin' on ta shit."_

_" Am not. It's my fucking shirt."_

_" Yes you are, all ya do is hold grudges an' rememba fights from foreva ago an' stupid shit."_

_" Joey, it's my fucking shirt!"_

_" Shut up you, ain't da point here."_

_" Really, I couldn't tell...the fuck is then?"_

_" Stop keepin' shit. Stop collectin' it all in dat big head of yours. Does it matter I lied about where I was last night? I'm here now ain't I? Or dat ya dad called two weeks ago ta say he was gonna drop by but neva did? No, at all. All dat matters is whacha got right now, in ya face, in ya hands, an' it's workin' for ya. Stop tryin' get more."_

_"...still my shirt..."_

_" Oh fuck off Seto, ya ain't gettin' it back!" _

Seto smiled for the first time in two weeks, although it was more of a grin, the kind you offer a widow at her husband's funeral. He gave a curt nod and adjusted Mokuba so that he could actually cradle the boy in his arms. He was staring up at his older brother, lips quivering and eyes going everywhere, wondering whether or not he'd get his fix.

Seto's eyes met Jo's for one last time, watching as the other bit his lip with one fang peeking out before turning around. He held onto his brother a little closer, leaning in and kissing the boy's forehead, his skin sticky and warm.

He took his time going down the stairs, sure Jo was still there watching, and counted the twelve steps before he reached the door.


	2. Breakfast

**Disclaimer**: Don't own YGO, i'm just borrowing the names but this storyline IS mine.

**AN: **the story itself is only 18pgs long but i decided to break it up into smaller chapters, makes it a little easier of a read & the pacing is better.

* * *

" Pass me the milk." He saw an arm reach out before he realized it was his brother's. Seto grabbed the gallon and handed it over, watching the younger boy take a seat at the kitchen table to pour himself a bowl of fruit loops.

His hair was the first thing he noticed. It was long, reaching the dip in his back where his spine met his pelvis. It was pitch black and shiny. He wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans cut off at the knee with a pair of converses so dirty it was hard to discern what their original color could have been. The coffeemaker beeped, breaking his gaze.

" How's school?"

" I dropped out."

" Oh." This was Seto's only response before he could actually sit and think about what Mokuba had just told him. He poured the obsidian liquid into his cup, sloshing against the chips from countless slips of hand.

" Can I get some money?"

" Didn't I give you a twenty yesterday?"

" Yeah and I used it."

" On what?"

" Shit."

" Shit? What shit?"

" Shit. Can I get some or not?"

" Get a job."

" Get a life."

" Fuck you."

" I'm not into incest."

Mokuba smiled and went back to picking at his mutli-colored cereal. Seto watched him, wondering when he'd gotten so thin and if it were his fault for never really learning how to cook.

" Why'd you drop out?"

Mokuba shrugged, not making any form of eye contact with him.

" Everyone there's a fake or a faggot. "

Seto choked, spitting the coffee in his mouth back into his cup. Mokuba remained uncaring and continued to eat his cereal. The elder brother put the cup back, not wanting his own backwash. He was angry and upset but a part of him had expected something like this.

" If that's the case, what're you?"

" Me?" Mokuba answered with a bit of milk dribbling down his chin from talking while still chewing. Using the back of his hand, he wiped it away. " I'm not anything. I don't pretend like my life's fucking perfect or that I'm gonna make it one day."

" What makes you said that? "

Mokuba's eyes met Seto's.

" You."

Seto bit his lip, contemplating the statement, not wanting to fly off the handle just yet. " What're you trying to say?"

" Look at you man, you're a goddamn pencil pusher who still lives in Stillwater's transitional ghetto, you spend everyday at your job filing meaningless upon meaningless shit and come home to do the same, you…"

" It pays the bills."

" And that's it huh? That's all what life is about?"

" It certainly isn't about putting on makeup and dresses to go God knows where."

" Oh fuck me for having some color in my life, at least I know how to have a laugh and remember peoples' birthday."

" What does…is it your birthday's today?"

Seto woke up knowing it was some Monday in November but that was as far as he could have fathomed. He counted the days and realized it was indeed Mokuba's eighteenth birthday.

" Yeah, can I have money now?"

" We should go out...to celebrate…or something."

" The fuck? No. I'm not your girlfriend."

" Look, I wanna take you out…we haven't done..."

Mokuba jumping up from his seat and dropping the chair onto the floor cut Seto off, followed by the screaming.

" FUCK YOU SETO! You think you can just magically make me forget how much of a worthless brother you are with fucking burgers and fries? Fuck you!"

" That is not at all what I meant, fucking calm down." This time Seto got up, slower than Mokuba, making sure to tuck his chair back into the table. " I just…"

" You just want to pretend like the last five years never happened? "

" No. I want to fix it."

" Nothing's broke big brother, you're just a little too slow to catch up with me."

Mokuba was out the door and down the stairs before Seto could even think of a reply. 


	3. St Vincent's

**Disclaimer**: Don't own YGO, i'm just borrowing the names but this storyline IS mine.

**AN: **last bit. hope you enjoyed.

* * *

White. Bleached. Sterilized. Washed. White. Seto wondered if this was what insane asylum patients felt, this clench and coil at the back of his eyes as they followed the patterns of ivory and gray tiles. He stood at the window with pastel curtains looking out over a parking lot empty except for a beat up Buick with missing plates and his own Chevy Impala. He could see half of all of Domino from this window, the nicer half, where the sounds of gunshots would never reach.

He played with a cigarette lighter in the left pocket of his jeans, closing and reopening it over and over again, relishing the muffled snapping sounds. He had yet to use it as an unopened pack of Malboros laid on top the window ledge for about the third day now. Mokuba had been admitted to St. Vincent's a week ago. The car ride had been the longest twenty minutes in Seto's life. Thirty if he were to include the time it took to strap Mokuba into his seat and lock the doors and windows so he wouldn't escape.

" Excuse me."

Seto ignored the voice, sure it was yet another nurse come in to take Mokuba's temperature. That's all they ever did. Take his temperature, check his vitals, change his IVs and tell Seto to wait.

" He looks just like you."

This was different. Seto turned his head just enough to see out the corner of his eye but it wasn't a nurse it was someone else. He was leaning over the railing of Mokuba's bed and brushing aside the little strands of hair from the slumbering face. He wore a faded black t-shirt with the words RAMONES barely visible across chest; the same t-shirt taken from Seto his junior year of high school. There were no black streaks in his hair, nothing but an all-natural dirty blonde muss that curled around his ears and nape of his neck. It was Joseph.

Seto's throat went dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Joseph looked up to speak and there were no fangs. " He's making great progress."

The mirage faded.

She wore St. Vincent's regulated lilac scrubs, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, both eyes green, and had the comforting smile all nurses pick up from years of late shifts and flat lines. A smile that said 'I'm sorry, I'm here for you, at least until you're gone'.

Seto couldn't respond.

" I know this must be hard on you but he's going to pull through. He's a strong one." She bowed her head afraid she'd said too much and turned away. " Just ask for Maggie if you ever need anything." She was out the door slower than Seto would have liked. He watched her go and a bubble of anger arose in his chest, clamping down inside his ribs.

" I'm going crazy." He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. It was oily, unkempt and getting long; at least longer than Seto was used to. Anything past the back of his ears was unsettling. It's one of the things he never understood about Mokuba.

Looking over at his brother, a sudden need to vomit overcame him so he turned away and pushed it back, certain he'd only get rid of a glass of orange juice anyway. He hadn't been eating much as of late but the fact was he hadn't been doing much of anything other than watching over his brother. He clutched at his stomach, willing away the curling pain of malnourishment. He hated how his skin was the same color as Micheal's, how frail he felt, like at any moment he would pass out but refused to. He fought against the darkness, against his need to sleep or eat or to even close his eyes long enough to rub away the redness. He'd take it all as his punishment if it would get his brother to wake up and walk away from this place.

_"Joey, what're we doing here?"_

_" I'm gonna introduce you to my mom."_

_" I thought your mom…" Seto didn't finish his sentence as the cemetery came into view. It was a miserable day as the sun was hiding from the world beneath gray clouds, away from the wet and cold fall air. Seto zipped his sweatshirt up further as he stepped out of the car._

_Joseph had shown up at his door at four in the morning and offered to drive. Now fully awake, Seto watched him climb out of the impala with a bouquet of yellow roses. He wondered vaguely where he could have gotten a hold of those this time of year but he kept his mouth shut._

_" Today's her birthday." Joseph said out loud as he walked on through the gates of Willow Stone Cemetery. He was wearing a black suit and tie and even his hair was tied back neatly. Seto was still in his pajamas and converses._

_" Joey?"_

_" C'mon." Joseph motioned his hand for Seto to follow and headed for the cluster of tombstones to the right. Seto followed quietly, looking down at the muddy earth the entire time, afraid he'd end up in some dirt puddle. " Here she is."_

_Joseph smiled even brighter than before as he wiped away stray leaves from the top of the tombstone that read "_Beloved Mother and Wife, Agatha Wheeler 1960-1999_". He placed the flowers on top and closed his eyes. Seto assumed to pray although he never thought Joseph to be the religious type. He felt awkward in his pajamas, at his best friend's mother's grave._

_" Mom, dis is Seto. Remember him? He's dat weird kid wit da glasses I used ta always get in trouble wit?" Joey opened his eyes and looked over at Seto. " We came ta wish ya happy birthday Ma."_

_" Happy…birthday?" Seto found it more and more unsettling. His own mother was buried two or three gravestones away but when he visited, there were no smiles or monologues with the dead. _

_" I've been doin' what I always do Ma, gettin' in trouble an' enjoyin' life. Me an' Seto here start school tamorrow. We'll be seniors Ma, can ya believe dat?"_

_The more he listened to Joseph, the more need Seto had to walk away. He felt like what was happening was incredibly private, a son reaching out to his dead mother. He'd always known Joseph to be incredibly okay with his emotions but he wasn't. He'd never been._

_" An' mom, I wantcha ta know, I miss ya an' dat I still think about cha everyday. Seto here reminds me a lot of ya so it's kinda hard not to. Think you twos were related maybe?"_

_" What?"_

_" Yeah." Joey looked back at Seto who was inching away, not intentionally but sometimes your body knew what you wanted more than you'd admit to. " Ya got da same soundin' laugh an' ya both got a pair of sad lookin' eyes." Joey moved closer to Seto, taking one of his hands into his. " Even da same soft feelin' hands."_

_" Okay, Joey, you're really starting to creep me the fuck out." He snatched his hand away, quick to stick it back inside his sweatshirt pocket._

_" Relax." Joey turned back to his mother's gravestone and crouched, holding onto the stone itself to keep from falling over in the mud. " I wanted to let ya know somethin' Ma. Dat asshole over there…I love 'im. I know ya'd love 'em too if yous were around. An' I know he loves me back, he's just afraid to admit it, jus like you used…"_

"Seto?" A tiny voice broke through the disinfected air, disturbing Seto from his morbid reminiscent. " _Setohh_?" He looked over at the bed and saw that despite his eyes being closed, Mokuba was attempting to wake up. Or at least move around.

" I'm right here Mokuba, right here." Seto couldn't have moved faster as he rushed over to his brother's side, getting on his knees to be at eye-level.

" Where am…"

" You're in the hospital, de-toxing." Words fell from his mouth like heavy stones into water. " They've got you on a pretty mean cocktail but you're okay, you're perfectly fine." Seto's hand reached out to bring Mokuba's left hand into his, using the pad of his thumb to rub cold skin.

" Huh?"

" If you're tired, just go back to sleep. I'll be right here." Seto leaned in further to kiss his brother's forehead, a gesture meant to reassure the boy.

" Mhmm." Mokuba had still to open his eyes. He kept scrunching them as if to try and close them even more against the fluorescent lighting. " m'sorry."

" It's okay, you need your rest." Seto smiled, the corners of his mouth barely curling, his own grey eyes barely open. Mokuba had stolen any and all the sleep he could have had and it was finally affecting him.

" I'm sorry for…" Mokuba sighed, cutting himself off. "_everything_."

" Mokuba, just go to sleep. I promise I'll still be here when you wake up." Seto passed his free hand over Mokuba's face and neck, searching for a fever. Relief, panic, guilt, and even a little vomit, racked Seto's body and he felt himself beginning to tremble. There was so much he wanted to tell Mokuba but the only thing to made it out was, " I love you Mokuba, you hear me?"

The boy nodded slowly, turning his head slightly towards his brother's voice. Seto stayed there on his knees, watching as his brother fought less and less against sleep, still holding his hand and fixing his hair. Before the meth, he'd only hear a door open in the distance and footsteps disappear to know whether or not his brother was around.

" I'll be here when you wake up and we'll go home soon. "


End file.
